What do GOP voters want? “Testicular fortitude,” among other things. Conversations with 100 Republicans in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Photographs by Benedict Evans

Additional reporting by Nick Tabor

Republican voters in New Hampshire and Iowa, December 2015, and whom they plan to vote for as of January 21.

On February 1, Iowans will cast the first votes of the 2016 presidential election, and the only thing that’s clear is that this Republican primary is the most unpredictable and surreal campaign in recent memory. But why? To understand the swirl of forces buffeting the party, we traveled across New Hampshire and Iowa and spoke to more than 100 Republican-primary voters. We met them in their homes and at town halls, at a motorcycle dealership and an auto-body shop. We attended a Christmas-themed Trump rally and a gun show where AR-15s were being sold alongside “historical” Confederate flags. (You’ll notice that there are no noticeable faces of color on this page; this is because we did not come across any nonwhite GOP voters in our travels.)

We tried to discern not just their candidate preferences but their worldviews. National security and the economy ranked among their top concerns, and health care, immigration, and gun control were important. But issues didn’t really seem to be the point. It was common to hear voters say they could choose any of the candidates across the ideological spectrum. “I like Christie because of his executive experience,” said Greg Mason, a 59-year-old IT engineer from Manchester, New Hampshire. “Carly Fiorina impresses the living death of me. I like Marco Rubio. Cruz. And Trump, I don’t agree with his positions, but he’s got the testicular fortitude to come out and say people are desperate.”

The phrase seemed telling. If there was anything almost all of the respondents sought in a candidate, it was that testicular fortitude — or, in less colorful terms, strength. It’s why Trump has steamrolled his rivals despite his ideological inconsistencies as a Republican. And it’s why Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio have failed to connect: Being labeled a nerd in this GOP primary is the kiss of death; being cast as a sissy is even worse. Machismo even seems to be Carly Fiorina’s best selling point.

This attraction to strength seems to be connected to an inchoate sense that the world is falling apart. The voters we spoke to were concerned about a lot of potential threats — terrorist, economic, and cultural — and hoped that a strong president would protect them from dangers within as well as from abroad. Voters said they no longer felt free to be themselves in their own country — policed in their speech, unable to pray publicly or even say “God bless you” when someone sneezes. “Everything’s so p.c.,” said Priscilla Mills, a 33-year-old hospital coordinator from Manchester. “And then the second you do say something, you’re a racist.” Trump, who had 21 percent of the vote in our small sample, has capitalized the most on the political-correctness grievance, which is likely to surface in the general election no matter who becomes the nominee.

The culture wars clearly aren’t defined along the same lines that they used to be. Almost everyone we spoke with said they were pro-life, but few talked about restricting abortion as their main issue. And gay marriage barely even registered as a cause for concern. “I feel like I don’t wear a black robe, so I don’t have the right to judge anybody,” said Tina Vondran, 49, of Monticello, Iowa.

Certainly, there were voters turned off by the polemical style of the more extreme candidates. And 48 percent were still undecided as of late January. But their leanings, which crisscrossed ideological positions, seemed to confirm the conventional wisdom that the GOP-primary voter is more motivated by mood than by policy. “Donald Trump has the best tagline of all, ‘Make America great again,’ ” said Rubio backer Russell Fuhrman of Dubuque, Iowa. “The country just seems to be in a severe decline. Insecurity’s so high; pessimism and political correctness are running rampant. It’s sad.”

Ultimately, what Republicans want to pick is a winner (even if their assessments of strength didn’t necessarily reflect pundit views of who is most likely to prevail in the general election). As much as they dislike Barack Obama, there is a bogey­woman they fear more. “If Hillary wins this election, the country’s either going to roll over and play dead,” said Iowa voter Fred Grunder, “or I could see some kind of revolution.”

I grew up as a strict constitutionalist. Let’s say my brother got caught with a pack of cigarettes in his room and my mom went to punish him. My dad said, “What are you doing in his room? You can’t punish him, you didn’t have jurisdiction to do the search.” I call myself a liberty Republican. I supported Ron Paul in the last two elections. I got interested in Donald Trump back in February. I put 32 liberty Republicans into a boardroom with him, and I drilled him for 25 minutes on tough issues. Even when you didn’t agree with him, you knew that he was going to do exactly what he thought was right and that he cared about the country more than he did feathering his own nest, which is not the feeling I get from Marco Rubio. And I would actually vote for a dead cat before I’d vote for another Bush — I would vote for Hillary over Jeb. I think Trump is going to do a better job even than Ronald Reagan.

Our system is so backwards. Nothing has been working for the past eight years. Something big has got to change so people are safe and financially okay. I’m going into law enforcement. And look at the war on police. We have a war on everything — war on gender, war on police, war on race, you name it. We’re just way too politically correct as a country. And you got to do what you got to do to keep your country safe. If it’s banning Muslims … I don’t know. I think Trump would make an awesome president. I love that people have tried to knock him down so many times and he’s still going strong. I really admire that.

I’m extremely concerned about the economy, and like everyone else I’m concerned about the terrorist attacks and the safety of our country. I debated between Jeb Bush and Christie for a while. But I think Chris Christie is the best suited to lead us in the area of keeping our country safe, because of his background as a prosecutor and because as a Republican he’s run a blue state. I don’t think he knew about Bridgegate. He said that the people who worked for him didn’t tell him that they were doing this. It was a terrible thing to do.

I work at a lip-balm factory. I used to work for Ricoh, the copy-maker. When my area lost two contracts, there was no need for my role anymore. Six months of wondering if I was going to get a job. It was really difficult, especially when you’re in your late 40s. I went on unemployment. My health care has gone to shit. I had to go to a high deductible because I can’t afford $240 a month. This is Obamacare.

I’m also an Army mom. My daughter was a Kiowa-helicopter tech, served for nine months in Afghanistan. But she is not finding a job now. Taking care of veterans is at the top of my list.

I really care about getting our country back to where it’s supposed to be. As soon as Trump came on the field, I was there. This is who I want. I didn’t look at anybody else. It’s just been The Donald. He speaks to the Americans that are genuine Americans at heart, that get what our country was based on. And Trump’s for the ­military. He’ll straight up tell you that.

Trump reminds me of Reagan. Reagan really lived what he believed. We have a president now that doesn’t believe what he lives. He made promises and gave us great hope. Now we’re getting that hope back. We’re trying to get that change back to the way this country should’ve been, where we can say “Merry Christmas” and “God bless America.” I’m tired of political ­correctness all the time. We have contract workers that work with us, and a lot of them are Muslim. We have to honor their rituals. If they need to pray during the day, we have to allow that. There’s something wrong. It’s harder to be a Christian now in America. We’re now the minority, and I’m hoping Donald can bring us back to being the majority again.

This is the other thing that I can’t get my Democratic friends to understand: Bringing in these refugees, why are there so many men? If you want to convince me, where are the women and children? I don’t have a problem with women and children. But we’re not vetting them. There’s just so much that I don’t trust. “We just have to open our hearts.” Open our hearts for what?

My other daughter is mixed race. She is pretty much a liberal. She has been ripping me up one side and down the other. She goes, “Trump is an atrocity.” I’m like, “You don’t understand him. He is for the people.” She thinks he’s racist. I told my daughter, “What you don’t like is he’s just like you: He tells you like it is.”

She believes that the Democrats have been doing so much more for the black culture. She keeps believing that the Republicans are the ones that are blocking this and I’m like, “No. They’re not.” She goes, “Well, it’s white suppression.” I go, “There’s no white suppression. You need to get out more.” Yes, black lives matter. All lives matter. There’s a lot of black-on-white crime that doesn’t get reported. And black-on-black crime is so huge. I mean, we can’t go a day or a week in Cedar Rapids, Waterloo, or Dubuque without shootings.

I did vote for Obama the first time around. Because I really was not happy with the Bush administration towards the end. The weapons of mass destruction were proven false; you kind of go, Okay, who’s telling the truth? I met Obama in Dubuque. I got two hugs from him. I was very impressed. They were trying to move him along, but he really wanted to hear what I had to say. I said, “I’ve been a Republican for many, many years. I think it’s time for change.” But the man I’m seeing in Washington now just doesn’t strike me as the person I talked to. He wasn’t doing what he said he was going to do. He was not ending what was going on in the Middle East.

The gun-control issue is huge for me. I’m getting my permit this month. I’ve had a lot of bad stuff in my past. I was a victim of a sex crime 12 years ago. The police did nothing for me, said they couldn’t prove anything. No matter how much therapy you get, you never feel completely safe. I need my own protection. It’s not because I’m going to shoot. I just want to say, “Hey, you’re not going to mess with me.

I used to be a Democrat, but — I’m sorry about my language — I’m ready to put boot to ass. Trump’s ideas and my ideas are pretty in tune. I had an epiphany 15 years ago when I said, “God, I want to own my own business, be a millionaire.” It took me ten years to make my first million, and then that exponentially grew. People say Trump’s not nice. Well, I’m not nice, either. Sometimes harsh words will motivate people. If you don’t want to get in that ditch and sweat and dig a mile for a couple thousand bucks, then don’t yell at me because I have money and you don’t. It feels like we’re just roller-coasting down, down, down, and I’m waiting for the climb back up, man, and I haven’t seen it yet. Everybody is scared when they’re going down and not going up. I’m sick of being scared.

Politics started for me when I was 17. There was a victory office for Mitt Romney in Derry. I started interning there and I fell in love with it. I’m in the College Republicans at UNH — although UNH is, like, Bernie country. We had a College Republican convention, and Governor Kasich came to speak, and that’s when I knew I wanted to support him. It was the way he spoke about his faith — he was so open about it, but not in a way that he was condemning other people. I’m a Christian, too, so that really stood out to me. There’s a reason why I never supported Trump or Cruz: I think you have to treat other people with the same respect you want to be treated with.

My whole mom’s side of the family is very conservative, and my whole dad’s side of the family is very liberal. My grandma in New York, she has a magnet on her fridge that says “Honorary member of Obama’s kitchen cabinet.” I just kind of have to ignore it. I think liberals are becoming more progressive day by day, and it kind of scares me, because new things are good, and I’m so open-minded to trying new things. But I think they just come up with an idea and they just throw it out there and don’t, like, think it through. Obamacare is a key example. They thought it was going to be this great thing, but it did so much harm.

The main issue for me is national security, especially with everything that happened in Paris. I’m scared to go places. I’ve also always been pretty concerned with the economy. I have loans, and leaving college … I’m nervous about that. And there’s so much overspending by the government. There are people who actually need welfare, but there are other people just being lazy. I know a girl from high school who brags about having an EBT card.

What really bothers me about voters my age is they’re so concerned over social issues. I’m like, “Guys, Roe v. Wade’s never going to be overturned, so stop crying about it. There’s nothing for you to worry about.” I personally believe in traditional marriage and I am pro-life, but both of these things have been decided by the Supreme Court and they don’t bother me. I’m not God; I don’t have to judge other people. Our president doesn’t have to spend his time worrying who can get abortions and who can get married. It should be decided by the states, because every state is very different. I went to Missouri a couple weeks ago, and it’s a completely different planet.

I don’t see why gender should play a big role. I think every human being is created equally, men and women, black and white, age, it doesn’t matter. Some people say nothing else matters to them besides the fact that Hillary Clinton is a woman. That’s like somebody saying I want Donald Trump to be the next president because he’s a man. It sounds just as ridiculous.

I’m a urologist. Male gynecologist. I’m really concerned with what will happen with the Affordable Care Act. It’s a horrible headache. What we do is hard enough. You’re not going to see physicians anymore. The orthopedic programs aren’t filled because nobody wants to go into it. It’s taking care of older people, Medicare age. They don’t get reimbursed enough.

I was a solid Democrat. My mom’s dad was a good friend of Richard J. Daley. And my brother’s a retired union electrician in Chicago. We were always union. The turning point, I think, was when I got my first paycheck. I said, “Dad, I thought I was supposed to get like 25 bucks for working those weekends at the caterers.” He goes, “Oh, son, sit down, let me explain to you.” He told me about FICA and Social Security, “I hate to tell you, but that’s not going to be there later on. It’s just an extra tax you’ll never see.” My mother, the Democrat, was saying, “Bob, stop telling him that.”

I have nine children between the ages of 16 and 30. One of my daughters is dating a patrol officer who’s black. He moved up from Miami. I like him — more than I like my daughter! She’s a good girl, though. She lives at home. It’s hard to get rid of them.

The city has changed a lot. It was very homogeneous. Now it feels like I’m back at Cook County Hospital in Chicago. There are shootings, stabbings. A friend of mine who works in the DEA said you’ll be having drive-by shootings here. I said no way. He said the drug trade is prevalent and they’ll feast on a town where they aren’t going to get pressured.

My wife, she sells cosmetics on the side just for her own benefit. We consider ourselves very pro-life. As a physician, that’s just the way I have to look at it. People talk about, Does a woman have a right to her own body? I said sure, but you’re talking about two bodies, two separate individuals, genetically. My wife was kind of, “Well, I don’t know if I could ever tell anybody they can’t have it.” And then we’d have discussions. She had an epiphany.

Trump I can’t fully trust, though he’s a very clever businessman. Ted Cruz is very smart, but the voice drives me crazy. I really like Christie’s aggressiveness. He’s a tough son of a buck, but will he appeal nationally? I like Rubio the most. He’s young and energetic.

The economy is a big issue. I think the budget is just obscene. When we’re $20 trillion in debt, that’s crazy. What is it, like, $50,000, $60,000 per person that our grandchildren and our children all owe? How in the hell are they going to come up with that? There’s very little talk about that at all, and there’s been nothing done in the present administration.

Climate is a factor, too, of course. If 99 percent of the scientists believe that climate change is going on, I think I’m probably going to have to agree with them.

Rubio is my No. 1 choice. I love his policies when it comes to the economy. He’s extremely articulate and extremely bright. Cruz, I haven’t listened to him nearly as much, but I would be happy with him. I like Ben Carson. I think he’s very logical. He’s just so noncombative and nonconfrontational, the opposite of Trump.

Trump just loves to roll his eyes and insult people. I find him extremely offensive. I know tons of people in favor of Trump, and he can insult people all he wants, it doesn’t seem to affect them, which worries me. I just can’t see us winning a general election with Trump. I’m shocked that he’s gone as far as he’s gone. I said, months ago, he’s going to burn out because people are going to realize he’s too crazy with some of his ideas — you know, “All Muslims should not be allowed to come in.”

I feel so sad when I see thousands, millions of people trying to escape Syria. Give me a second and a half, and I’d take a mother and her two, three, or four kids and put them in my house. It’s just the right thing to do. The people against letting in refugees, I can see their point, that one of them could turn out to be one of those in San Bernardino, so holy crap, who do you trust? But still, you just simply can’t ban them all.

Some people, they don’t have much generosity. They don’t have their heart in the right place. I go to a great church. That informs my attitude. Trump was asked this question, “Have you ever asked God for forgiveness?” He was like a deer in the headlights.

I have a ton of guns, probably 30 guns. It’s just the guns that I’ve used over the years. With all this stuff going on, the gun ownership is going up dramatically. It’s all about defense. It’s not shotguns and rifles that I was using when I grew up as a kid for hunting. They’re buying these AR-15s. I have a little problem there. Some of them are just not made for any other purpose except for crazy-shooting people. I think they need to be a little bit more careful about who owns them. I would not have a problem, though I don’t think it will ever happen, banning ­certain types of weapons.

Our society is just so crazy compared to when I was a kid. Nobody locked their doors. In the last 35 years, it’s changed dramatically. The thing of it is, it’s not going to get better. Ten years from now, it will be that much worse. I’m just convinced of that.

One of the biggest issues for me is gay marriage. I considered switching to the Democratic Party because of that alone. The Republican Party has been on the right side of social issues for the last 200 years, and this is just the one time when they’re on the wrong side. It’s a generational issue. I’m not going to let it define me politically.

I’m deciding between Jeb, Kasich, Trump. Jeb, being a governor from Florida, dealing with disaster recovery, dealing with significantly large budgets … If there’s one person who really knows how to actually work within the bureaucracy of the federal government, it’s Jeb. And Kasich, when he was in Congress, he was on the House Finance Committee, working with Newt Gingrich and President Clinton to actually balance the budget. It’s difficult for me, personally, to get behind Rubio. I think it should be difficult for the party to do the same. This is a candidate who criticized Obama for being a one-term senator who lacked leadership experience. And he’s a one-term senator, yet there’s no one criticizing him for hypocrisy.

Trump’s unique. He’s qualified. He has executive experience. He’s created jobs — not just on a national but on an international level. A lot of people are worried about some of the things he says. And rightfully so. But it’s difficult to overlook the fact that people are supporting what he’s saying. I mean, when it comes to the Muslim temporary ban, 80 percent of those polled actually agreed with what he said. That’s a strikingly large number. I think he’s a serious contender. I personally think we have bigger issues to deal with right now. But what he’s saying does spark a debate. It does allow the country to talk and ideas to flow.

Trump’s dangerous. If he wins the nomination, I would do a third-party protest vote. Having a religious test for who comes here — like he is proposing — is embarrassing. Especially for a refugee scenario. Those people are running for their lives. The Muslim people in this country should be completely separated from Islamic terrorism. They are an easy target to blame everything on. Trump has taken that anger and used it.

I started out supporting Carly. She’s very articulate and very strong. I think she would be a really tough matchup with Hillary. I don’t think she’s friendly enough, though. People are starting to go, “Would you have a beer with this person?” and I probably wouldn’t.

I wouldn’t vote for Cruz — just too conservative. Rubio was very strong in the debates. I think of him and the future, the younger generation. I think he’d be a great V.P. candidate.

I like Jeb, but he’s not dynamic enough. And he’s had to carry that baggage of being the third Bush. Kasich’s politics are right next to mine, but I didn’t get the same hee-ha I got from Christie. I like Christie best. I think people are over the bridge issue. He passed the sit-down-and-have-a-beer test.

Ted Cruz is the most conservative guy in the bunch and he’s frankly the smartest guy in the bunch. I was leaning toward Rand Paul until Rand started to give me the impression that he was a little soft. Largely, the reason why I’m a conservative is because I’ve been on public assistance my whole life, and I have always felt ashamed of it. I have two major health conditions — cerebral palsy and an injury to my left hemidiaphragm. The whole idea of welfare and entitlements is to create a permanent underclass. They’ll give you plenty of handouts, but they won’t give you any hand-ups.”

The Undecideds

During a normal presidential primary, Iowa and New Hampshire voters tend to pick their candidates in the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas. The thinking among campaign strategists is that families head home for the holidays, argue politics, and make decisions. But one of the most striking dynamics of this year’s election is just how many undecided Republican voters there still are. Of the people we met on the road, 56 percent hadn’t made up their minds. And 48 percent remained that way when we called them back in late January.

Partly, this is because voting is taking place much later this year: For the first time since 1996, the Iowa Caucuses are being held in February, giving candidates an extra month to make their case. But voters’ vacillation also reflects the fact that with a record 12 Republican candidates in the race, it’s harder than ever to choose.

Those who had made up their minds since we first met them were largely moving to Rubio and Trump. Some who decided on Trump seemed to have simply grown more comfortable with the idea of a Trump presidency. “I don’t want a politician,” said Claude Greiner of Kalona, Iowa. “It’s time we try something different, someone who will do what he says he will do.”

Some of those who remained undecided wished they could cherry-pick the best qualities of each person running to make an unstoppable Über-candidate. Timothy van Deest of Cedar Rapids sketched out a dream nominee: “I really like Dr. Ben Carson — brilliant, such a genteel man. Rubio, he is a very gifted speaker. Cruz is masterful on the Constitution. Carly Fiorina, I like her a lot. I get a big kick out of Rand Paul. And Trump, he’s the John Wayne guy, Mr. USA, no more pushing us around.”

"My wife is from Kazakhstan. We met in Germany, actually, while I was in service. She sees a lot of younger males that are old enough and strong enough that they could be in the military, fighting against what's going on there. And the border controls that are going down. She’s honestly on the U.S. side on all of this. She’s like, ‘Put your walls up. I did it right. Why can’t you?’"

Photo:
Benedict Evans

Ann Kolifrath, 75, retired nurse

From: Bedford, New HampshireSupporting: Cruz

"Ted Cruz adheres to the Constitution. He’s not afraid to fight the GOP. He stands up to them, without reservation. He, to me, seems like he’s on our side. He’s one of the few."

"Bureaucracy has gotten way out of hand. I used to be in the pharmacy business. I owned three stores. It’s stupid, the way it is now. I mean, I’m glad I retired. The rules that don’t gain anything except giving the bureaucrats something to do are ridiculous. It just keeps building and building and building."

"I’m from Grundy, Virginia. I worked in the coal mines for years, and that was the time they were folding us down. I blame it on the EPA, and Obama, when he said that he was going to war on coal. You know, he said it on national television. When he said that, that was enough for me to know. Because I worked in a union. Democrat or not, you can’t squeeze somebody like that. That’s all we have back there."

“I don’t like politicians in the first place. You know, I’m kind of half-interested in Trump, but he does scare me at the same time. I’ve read that he’s voted liberal in the past. He actually did support Obama the first and second term, I believe. He just makes me nervous. He’s almost too good to be true, the way I see it. I just don’t know whether to trust him or not.”

"I’d really like to see some modifications to the tax code. As a small-business owner, it is probably my No. 1 source of stress every day. There’s not a day that passes that I don’t think, I’m doing something wrong, and this is going to be a huge pain in the ass later. So when I look at the different platforms, I have to identify with the Republican Party more. There’s a lot of individual liberty that I think the left generally respects, but one of the things they don’t respect is small-business rights."

"I just want to feel safe like I felt like I did with George W. after 9/11. He had just taken office, and that kind of ruined his presidency, in a way. Our president now isn’t tough at all. I don’t think he cares. I think he’s an economic — I can’t say Hitler. But part of me feels like he does the national debt on purpose, because I feel like he hates America."

"It’s tough for kids. The jobs just aren’t there like when we were growing up. And where I grew up in Pennsylvania, there’s the steel industry, a lot of building, and all that stuff. Up here, you know, it’s far and few between."

"I think Donald Trump is a parody of what a campaign ought to be and I’m ashamed of my party for the support that he seems to be getting. I wonder who these people are because I don’t know any of them."

"Everybody should be pitching in. You know, like JFK said, ask not what this country’s going to do for you. So many people that are living off public support and handouts. Go get a job and contribute to this country.”

"I first learned about Rand Paul in the ‘08 election. One of my friends told me, ‘Hey, this guy is talking about legalizing everything.’ I was like, ‘That’s awesome. I want to check that out.’”

Photo:
Benedict Evans

Carla Gericke, 43, president of the Free State ProjectFrom: Manchester, New HampshireSupporting: Undecided

"If we actually all subscribe to the belief that you’re allowed to do what you want as long as you don’t harm me and I’m allowed to do what I want as long as I don’t harm you, then why wouldn’t that be kind of an awesome society?”

"I think having kids now, looking at it from a different perspective, whether or not it’s impacting me now, it’s going to impact my kids. I’m trying to take a more vested interest in that. I have a 14-year-old who’s concerned now that ISIS is going to come attack us. She’s hearing about it in school and hearing about Paris. She was born just before 9/11, so she doesn’t remember that."

"I don’t think anybody should go hungry — unless they don’t want to work. And I think everybody ought to have health insurance. But I think they ought to work for it and pay for a little of it, too. And we have given a lot of money to charity, because we have been successful, and we’ve tried to give back. But I have one philosophy: Teach a man how to work, don’t give him a fish. Teach a man to fish, don’t give him a fish."

"I think I’d probably go toward Jeb Bush. Although I’ve been watching Mr. Kasich from Ohio a little bit. He seems to have the right demeanor and presence and state of mind that you would expect out of a presidential candidate. More introverted. Which is characteristic of a lot of presidents, right? A lot of them are introverts."

Photo:
Benedict Evans

Dave Martinez, 49, DJFrom: Manchester, New HampshireSupporting: Paul

"This insurmountable debt is a real security risk. People think America is too big to fail. We are not! We are not too big to fail. I’ve seen the graphs — showing, ‘What is a trillion dollars?’ And if you stacked $100 bills, you would bury the Statue of Liberty. You know? People don’t realize how much money that is. So that’s our biggest concern. My wife and I balance our own budget. And Washington hasn’t, for how many years now?"

Photo:
Benedict Evans

Debbie Eberly, 50, pastorCoralville, IowaSupporting: Trump

"Trump’s not weak. There’s a difference between light and darkness and we believe he’s more on the middle."

“What I like about Rand Paul is his authenticity, the way he speaks. He’s clear. He says what he’s going to do, and I believe what he’s going to do. He seems real. I don’t really follow politics as well as my husband does, but there are some issues that I do like that Rand talks about, and that’s the way he wants to handle the deficit, and our security. That’s what I like about him.”

"Immigration helps us in many ways, but by the same token, we have to cross the I’s and dot the T’s as it relates to who’s coming into this country. And they’ve got to be vetted seriously, and even more so these days, given what’s happening. We’re already infiltrated, unfortunately."

"I think the GOP is on the right track with this campaign, they've got women, they've got minorities, you know? Dr. Carson; they got two Hispanics up there. I mean, they are more diverse than the Democrats, although the Democrats still paint them as the old, white party, so I think they are moving in the right direction."

"I don’t think Trump should be excluding all Muslims. It’s so … racist, almost. It takes away from the freedom. I think there should be some restrictions, just not too strict, and not too lenient. Because that’s where we have problems. If it was Hillary Clinton versus Trump, I think I’d go for him. But if it was him or any of the other Republicans, I would not vote for him."

"The younger generation has kind of been dumbed down a little bit, I think. I just don’t know if they’ll have the resolve or see the need to take America back to the free status that it has. Everybody likes free stuff. ‘Free college! Count me in! Free health care — count me in!’ So I don’t know what’s going to happen. But if we get the right president, and it’s a true leader, that can get us back to where it’s not so polarized up in Washington, where every faction can give and take a little bit, I see the country [having], maybe, our best days ahead."

"There’s a great deal of disappointment with Mr. Obama and what he’s done. Even among my staunchly Democratic friends, they sort of hang their head whenever his name is brought up. He feels that global warming is more important than people getting killed in San Bernardino. People look at that and say, ‘What is he, crazy? You want to spend all these dollars that we don’t have on stuff that ain’t going to happen for 200 years? Are you crazy?’"

"I think what appeals to some Republicans now is this Ted Cruzian idea of ‘I’m drawing a line in sand, pretty far to the right, and don’t worry, I’m never going to let anybody cross that line. This is what we’re going to do, and I’m not going to bend.’ That doesn’t appeal to me. But I think it does appeal to some people, because they see Barack Obama as having done that on the left. They want the same thing. I’m not sure that that’s a practical way to win a general election."

"My own personal belief is that libertarians have a difficult time selling themselves, because they can’t promise people all this wonderful stuff. People like Bernie Sanders can run around, telling everybody he’s going to give them everything in the world. But he can’t, really, and he can’t do it without taking taxes from me. So basically these very powerful people are manipulating the population. Personally, I think there should be no taxes."

"It’s pretty obvious that Trump doesn’t speak from a filter and I like that. I might not agree with a lot of the things he says, but he doesn’t say what he thinks is going to be popular just to get votes."

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James Garrison, 67, author and former truck driverFrom: De Soto, IowaSupporting: Trump

"We now have the ability to accomplish more than at any time in human history. Because of technology, communications, so many things. And yet we also are on the verge of having the least desirable of life in history. So much now is ‘I’m a victim; it’s somebody else’s responsibility.’ It used to be, you fell off a cliff, it was your responsibility. You know? You’re the idiot that got too near it. Nowadays you’ll sue somebody for not putting up a barricade or something."

"I think a lot of your social services — whether it’s welfare or EBT — I think there’s a lot of abuse of that, and I think people learn how to beat the system doing that. They spend a whole career doing that. And then they teach the young ones how to do it. I feel that if you're on some kind of society program, sponsored program, like welfare, for three or six months, your right to vote should be suspended — because you’re biased. You’re obviously going to vote for the guy that promises you that welfare will continue for many years."

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Jane Biddick, 57, music teacherFrom: Marion, IowaSupporting: Trump

"When I heard Trump was running, I dropped my hat. That was it. I couldn’t believe it. It was kind of like — you know, if you found the mate you’d been waiting for, or the home of your dreams. I just knew that it was perfect. There’s a lot of us who try and try, and we hit and miss. A lot of us don’t succeed to the level that he has. He’s like a Carnegie. You know the Carnegie family? Or one of those people in history — the Ford family, for example. He’s a Henry Ford in our lifetime."

"They’re wondering why a lot of the things that are going on in America are going on — with the shootings and stuff. You even watch cartoons — they’ve got shootings on the cartoons, and cussing and swearing. It’s not like when I was growing up, with Bugs Bunny and all them. They took what our forefathers fought for out of the schools. They took the Ten Commandments out of the schools. And now they wonder why society’s going the way it is. You've got school shootings and everything else."

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Jesse Devriendt, 29, works on family farmFrom: Goffstown, New HampshireSupporting: Undecided

"Carson seems like a good choice. He’s smart, and he obviously has some idea of what he’s doing. He came up from nothing. But he needs to take a step forward, because every time he speaks, he drawls on, the same monotony. It almost sounds like cardboard. Whereas Trump, I think he could do a lot of good things, because he’s not afraid to push the button. But he’s a little too boisterous for his own good. I think he needs to think about some things more before just rushing into it headlong."

"Everything in life that we buy is bought at auction. Your home, and even — even when you buy bread at the store, it’s really auctioned. At an auction, the person with the most money sets the price. Because they have enough money to decide where the bidding stops. And that’s what happens in health care, because guess who the biggest bidder is? The United States government. And now they’ve done it in education, and they’ve done it to health care. They’ve destroyed both things. The more the federal government’s gotten involved, the worse everything has gotten."

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John Spottiswood, 44, service and sales for Coca-ColaFrom: Pelham, New HampshireSupporting: Undecided, considering Cruz, Rubio, and Christie

"When I was 19 or 20, I actually got accepted into the New Hampshire corrections system. But going to work in that world — oh my God, it definitely intensified my political views. It made me probably a lot more — what’s the right word? — it definitely steered me more in the beliefs I had. I know every day when I went in, I said, ‘I never want to do anything wrong, because I don’t want to live like this.’ And it was horrible the way we coddled these people. These were criminals. We coddled them and used taxpayers’ money for some of the ridiculous stuff they were doing."

"We are so into self-esteem and coddling that when a kid gets to be of age, and it’s time for them to go to school or go to work, they don’t know how to deal, because they’ve never had any adversity. Because even when they didn’t try, they were told they did well."

"Governor Kasich has had the foresight to see the threats ahead of time. I remember recently seeing something from him in February, where he spoke about the need for a coalition and going in to combat ISIS. He’s been making that same policy proposal for nine months. You look at how everyone is starting to come around to, ‘Oh, maybe that’s a great idea, actually.’ In February, it was kind of dismissed as, ‘Oh, we’re not there yet.’ Now here we are, saying, ‘What are we going to do?’ I was abroad when the Paris attacks happened, so it’s definitely something that has skyrocketed in importance for me."

"I think maybe in 50 or 100 years we could be a Muslim nation. My grandparents were immigrants from Poland and they came here legally. They did it the right way and I just see so much of the opposite. Of people coming in and not fitting in. Of not adopting our beliefs and our society but wanting us to change for them.”

"I’ve been to see Ted Cruz. Ted Cruz was really good. He’s very forceful. I saw that when he was there. He makes a decision, ‘This is the way it’s going to be,’ and he doesn’t wash around on anything. And he goes into great detail on how he’s going to improve the Department of Education, and the borders. He’s very detailed. He’s got it all planned out already. I remember when some of the other candidates, down the road, said, ‘Bob Dole knows what to do. Bob Dole will do it.’ That’s not enough. That doesn’t take the cake. I knew right then and there, ‘You’re a loser, buddy.’"

"I think it’s a breakdown of American society. We’re not allowing people [the] dignity to succeed. Because look at our president. Look at Oprah. Look at the success stories we have in this country. And we’re not allowing for that."

"I believe that there are some terrorists here, in the United States. We need a stronger leader. With Trump there — I think he’s a lot like Reagan. I was younger when Reagan was president, but he was a strong leader. Everybody thought he was a joke — he was just an actor, he wasn’t going to make a strong president. But I thought he was great. And that’s who Trump reminds me of."

"I’m not a Trump supporter, I will tell you that. But Fiorina, Christie, Rubio, Cruz, I think they’re all very viable candidates. But I’m going to be voting for the one that I think can beat Hillary. I may like this person a little better, but if I think this person has what it takes to win — because, you know, all of my interests, and my values are worth nothing if we’re not electable. We have to be electable. And maybe I’ll get 70 percent of what I want out of that president."

"Donald Trump, what he’s talking about, I agree with. Until we get a better vetting system to find out who people are — because there’s many right now that are infiltrating among the refugees that are coming here. Their only intent would be to go out and kill as many Americans as possible. Because we’re known as infidels."

"There are parallels that can be drawn from America now and what happened in Nazi Germany. Xenophobia, hate the other person, those kinds of things. The fact that that’s the main point of discussion right now — that says something about the state of society.”

"I’m voting for Chris Christie. He’s got some experience dealing with terrorists, as the attorney general of New Jersey. He’s not afraid of them. This guy’s got a set of balls. We’ve got to stop being mammy-pammy, and we’ve got to start putting our foot down. ‘Cause they’re here — they’re here in Manchester; they’re everywhere. It’s just a matter of time before we get their full force. That’s my belief. "

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Mark McLean, age not provided, engineerManchester, New HampshireSupporting: Paul

"Many people think if you go limited government you’re back to the 19th century: poor, naked children in the streets. That’s not really what it is.”

"I really want to get away from the Establishment on both sides of the party. I agree with Rand Paul about everything, just about, but he’s not doing so hot, and Trump is doing pretty good and he’s hilarious."

"I definitely don’t think the country is headed in the right direction. Especially the last seven years have been really bad. But even in our business, working, it’s hard to find people that want to work, show up every day, and are good workers. I mean, I don’t know if a younger-generation mentality — they think they should just be given everything or they shouldn’t have to work for it, or whatever. But I know everybody is having the same problem, trying to find good-quality workers."

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Mike Curreri, 25, works at a motorcycle shopManchester, New HampshireSupporting: Undecided

"The whole political correctness and all that — that’s changed quite a bit. A lot more people are getting offended by little things than they used to. There’s a lot of controversy with that. Like the whole happy-holidays thing. I said ‘happy holidays’ to a customer last week. He said, ‘No; Merry Christmas.’ And I said, ‘Merry Christmas.’ It’s shit like that."

"It’s really hard to compare Trump and Cruz because they both have the same views. If you listen to the way that Donald Trump talks and then you listen to the way that Ted Cruz talks, they’re exactly the same. They have the same beliefs, they have the same stance."

"Trump is bold, and he says what’s on his mind, but I feel like he wouldn’t have gotten as far as he has in business if he wasn’t a good negotiator. At our office, we plugged his tax plan into our software, to see, and it’s genius. We couldn’t believe it. It’s still a little higher taxes for people that are wealthy, but it’s not going to hurt them. And it’s going to save a lot of the smaller people a lot of money. They need it. He’s just not going to tax them. It makes sense."

"I really do believe that the Republican Party platform is a good, strong platform. I just don’t think that the people that are in the political positions are following that platform and not understanding what limits government needs.”

"The idea of liberty has become popular in the last three or four years, and a lot of people have latched onto that. I think Ted Cruz is a fake libertarian. And I think Rand Paul is taking a watered-down approach, because he wants to continue to appeal to people that are more moderate. But he’s the closest thing we’ll come to this election cycle to more of a liberty approach."

"Are we going to have the government watching us? Are they watching for us, or are they just attacking us, saying everything that we’re doing is wrong, we’re bad people and this or that?”

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Quinn Meyer, 21, studentFrom: Dubuque, IowaSupporting: Rubio

"I feel like we’re headed in the wrong direction. I feel like eight years of Obama took a toll on our country, and I think people are starting to realize it now. I think if we get Hillary Clinton in office, it’s going to be the same way. We need to get people to start rallying around one Republican candidate. And get some of the Democrats and independents to rally around them as well. I think we’ve seen a decline in American values."

"Personal responsibility got away mainly because the government is telling you it will be responsible for you. When I was a kid you got a letter from the teacher saying you did this, you were bad, you got in more trouble. Now the parents come to the school and yell at the teacher.”

"I think what influences me more now is economics, and creating jobs that pay. I have grandchildren, and I want them to be successful, and I think we’re driving most of the jobs out of America, and we’re not exploiting our own resources. We spend more, more, more, and impose more programs with no offsets. You can’t continue like that."

"I’m just finishing high school — I’m in my senior year right now. I’m going to go to Kirkwood Community College for criminal justice. I want to be a police officer. They’ve been under a lot of scrutiny lately for doing their job. We need more people to do that — to stand up. We need police officers to keep us safe."

"There is a World War III coming, unfortunately. There’s no getting around it. I would prefer that there wasn’t. But I think that if we had had a stronger president than who we have now, we would still be in danger, because we’re always going to be in danger of that, but it would have been a little bit more minimized, you know what I mean?"

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Richard Ralston, 60, salesFrom: Cedar Rapids, IowaSupporting: Trump

"I love turning on CNN and MSNBC to see how they try and cut people down and then the numbers go up, and it baffles them. I love the look on their face. I time it sometimes, the number of minutes before they mention the name Trump."

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Rog Wood, 66, retiredFrom: Cedar Rapids, IowaSupporting: Trump

"If we got Hillary as a president we’d have two for the price of one in the White House, Bill and Hillary. Once a president, always a president.”

"Nobody really wants to be an American anymore because we’re going to make somebody mad. When I was a kid, which was 15 years after World War II, everybody wanted to be American because we were the ones protecting everybody.”

"We’ve got the greatest country in the world. So I want us to be better. In the last eight years, we’ve gone backwards. Our candidates can start that: treating people nice and polite and with common courtesy. It starts at the top and it all comes down. It just comes to morals and values and standards. And everybody’s slipping. Especially in politics. I do think we have the greatest military, but I think we could be better yet. I mean, there’s always room to improve. There’s always a way to be better."

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Russell Fuhrman, 73, retiredFrom: Dubuque, IowaSupporting: Rubio

“You had the antiwar protesters in the ‘60s and that sort of thing. But today it’s so pervasive. The country is so divided. It’s just heartbreaking, really. And there’s a decline in all the institutions. Not only don’t people not like each other, they don’t trust each other, they don’t trust the institutions.”

“I think in terms of this heroin epidemic, one of the things that I believe is when I was growing up we had strong families with a support system, we had neighborhoods that we could go and get into a baseball game, a football game, get into a fight.”

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Stuart Weeks, 62, Director of the Center for American Studies in Concord, MassachusettsFrom: Lancaster, New HampshireSupporting: Undecided

"We speak of our American dream, but if we’re dreaming, we’re asleep, and I think regrettably, many Americans are falling asleep and they’ve forgotten what Lincoln said when he spoke of a government of, by, and for the people.”

"We need to bring God back into the schools because I think when you take God-fearing people and bring them together, we wouldn’t have what’s going on right now.”

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Tammy Simmons, 52, state representativeFrom: West Manchester, New HampshireSupporting: Paul

"I actually think Rand is the only one who actually isn’t just saying things. I actually think he believes the things he’s saying. He talks about protecting the rights of black kids in the inner city, because they’re unjustly prosecuted. I mean, we all know it. But he actually says it, and I actually think he gets it and realizes that we have to stop. The whole NSA thing — that’s huge. Everybody keeps brushing it off — ‘It’s okay if they spy on you if you’re not doing anything wrong.’ And I’m like, ‘No, actually it’s not okay.’"

"Global warming is the biggest joke of all. It’s not even global warming, it’s climate change, because they used to call it the warming. But when they couldn’t quite always say this, warming, they had to change, so every time we have a storm it’s climate change.”

"It’s still ‘Give me your poor, your tired, your huddled masses.’ But you’ve got to have these checks and balances. We’ve got to assimilate these people. You don’t bring your culture here and expect us to assimilate into that. You come here and you learn the language. You do things legally. But they capitulate, capitulate, capitulate."

"I’m a strong believer in the Constitution and I’m looking to back a candidate who knows the Constitution and who lives by those values and principles. I think that we as a people, regardless of what political party you belong to, I think so many of us have drifted further and further away from that wonderful document that our founders left us.”

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Tom Giese, 58, factory ownerFrom: Dubuque , IowaSupporting: Rubio

"Everything seems to be in shambles. I pay a high tax rate and I don’t get anything out of it. I feel we should pay our fair share, but we’re just … we’re not getting anything out of it.”

"We don’t need a U.S. Department of Education. There’s nothing in the Constitution — nothing — that says that’s the federal government’s job. That’s a job for the states. I don’t know what the Department of Commerce does — except protect the president. You can move them over to another group. And the Post Office ought to be done away with! Take it out for bid. Come on. Four billion dollars a year, they’re not making it. I mean, they haven’t adjusted to the times. People use email, Facebook — call it social media. That’s how they communicate today. They’re not sending letters. But the Post Office never changes. The guys delivering the mail never change. They get the same money all the time. You can’t run it like that."

"It’s different if people come in to be Americans, but then there are people coming in to be what they want to be. They want to have all the rights that we have, but then they still want to be called Americans and they want to be called Muslims and they want to be their own race. They just want to live where we want to live.”

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Winfred Hutchinson, 75, former state representative, worked in manufacturing and salesFrom: Manchester, New HampshireSupporting: Rubio

"Rubio has a lot of legislative experience. He has good foreign-policy experience. He’s an optimist. Trump is a pessimist. ‘We’re in terrible shape! I want to make America great again!’ And Rubio’s saying, ‘America is already great. I want to make it greater than it is now.’ It’s more his tone than anything else, to be honest with you. And the fact that he’s young. He’s got big ideas, and he’s got an optimism that people really need. And he can win."

Additional reporting by Nick Tabor.

*A version of this article appears in the January 25, 2016 issue of New York Magazine.